One of the saboteurs arrested in the Lugansk People’s Republic has named the killer of the Donetsk People’s Republic’s Sparta battalion commander, Arsen Pavlov, widely known by his codename “Motorola.”

This comes on the heels of the LPR Ministry of Internal Affairs and Ministry of State Security’s report on the arrest of servicemen from Ukraine’s 8th special forces regiment on suspicion of involvement in the assassination of People’s Militia commander Oleg Anashchenko and other terrorist attacks.

Ivan Deev, one of those arrested, confessed in a video clip presented to RIA Novosti by the LPR’s security ministry: “I can also confirm that when I was in Khmelnitsky in the 8th regiment of Ukraine’s special forces, I heard Major Balov, the chief of intelligence, boast that Motorola’s murder was his handiwork.”

According to Deev, Balov once said that he had previously undergone special training for rigging elevator explosives, i.e., the method by which Motorola was assassinated in October 2016.

Today, March 10th, two significant announcement have come out of Lugansk pertaining to Ukrainian terrorist operations in general and the assassinations of commanders Anashchenko and Givi in particular.

Igor Kornet, the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Lugansk People’s Republic, officially stated that the persons (no number is given) involved in the assassination of People’s Militia commander Oleg Anashchenko on February 4th have been arrested on the territory of the LPR. Kornet also confirmed that the suspects were servicemen of the Ukrainian army.

“All of them are servicemen of the special forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces who were deployed to Lugansk as part of saboteur-terrorist groups to commit terrorist acts on the orders of the Security Service of Ukraine. They are now being interrogated,” Kornet announced.

The minister added that two weapons and ammunition caches, plus an explosive device, were uncovered by police during the investigation. Kornet stressed the significance of this discovery: “This stock and the type of weapons and equipment therein prove that the terrorist act committed by those now arrested is far from the only act of intimidation planned by Ukrainian special forces on the territory of the free republics.”

Kornet’s statement on the Anashchenko case was immediately followed by a press statement of the LPR’s Minister of State Security, Leonid Pasechnik. According to Pasechnik, the ministry has discovered a special department within the Security Service of Ukraine, headed by Colonel Anatoly Sandursky, codenamed “Hutor”, which directly engages in organizing sabotage and terrorist activities in the people’s republics and the Russian Federation.

According to Pasechnik, Givi’s assassins were servicemen of the 8th special forces regiment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces under the command of Colonel Oleg Nechaev and the 8th regiment’s intelligence chief, Major Pavel Balov, codenamed “Kedr,” who is stationed in the city of Khmelnitsky in Ukraine. This specific unit is part of the larger terrorist operations division under investigation by Lugansk’s security forces.

“These people bear direct responsibility for this crime [the assassination of Givi] and other crimes committed in the LPR, DPR, and Russian Federation, for example in Crimea,” the LPR’s security minister emphasized.

Pasechnik added that at the present moment a detachment of the above-mentioned regiment numbering 120-150 troops is located in Starobelsk not far from Lugansk. The unit has been estimated to be divided into four saboteur-reconnaissance groups numbering 12 to 17 men each.

US Special Forces teams, including Delta Force and Navy SEALs, are likely to see more missions in the Middle East, as the Pentagon is reportedly preparing new deployments to the region, according to ABC, citing security officials.

Though not announced publicly, new deployments of Delta Force and Navy SEALs operators to Iraq, Syria, and the Horn of Africa are underway, US defense officials told ABC News on Friday. Some sources in the military said the troops welcome the Trump administration’s tough stance on combating terrorism.

“We don’t know for sure what will happen, but the boys really think we’re going to see a lot of action on this deployment – because of the new administration,” said one unnamed member of a Special Forces unit that recently deployed overseas.

Another source, also unnamed but described as a veteran with 20 years of experience in covert operations, told ABC the authority to expand counter-terrorism operations overseas had occurred over the past months. “Authorities have changed in special operations’ favor with the new administration. We’re doing work on the bad guys,” he said.

The report comes shortly after a remarkable statement by General Joseph Votel, former head of the US Special Operations Command, who said in late February that new deployments to war-torn Iraq and Syria are a possibility.

He said local forces trained and backed by the US “don’t have as good mobility, they don’t have as much firepower, so we have to be prepared to fill in some of those gaps for them,” noting that possible American deployments may involve providing additional fire support capability and “a variety of other things” to help “offset some of the gaps.”

“It could be that we take on a larger burden ourselves,” Votel said. “That’s an option.” He added, however, that it’s very unlikely that US troops would be directly engaged in hostilities, stressing that the military strategy of guiding and coordinating local forces from behind – developed during the Obama administration – remains unchanged.

According to some reports, US Special Forces teams are present in both Syria and Iraq, with the declared goal of achieving the military defeat of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and other Islamist groups. Around 500 commandos operate in Syria, up from just 50 in 2015, the Washington Post reported last October.

It has also been widely reported that US Special Forces are taking part in the Iraqi Army’s ongoing offensive to recapture western Mosul.

In other parts of the Middle East, the elite US troops have suffered casualties recently, as the first known counter-terrorism operation under the Trump administration resulted in the death of Navy SEAL Team Six member Chief Petty Officer Ryan Owens in late January, during an operation against Al-Qaeda in Yemen.

Three other US personnel were wounded in action, and an aircraft was destroyed after it made hard landing while trying to bring in reinforcements. The SEAL team had engaged in a firefight with Al-Qaeda militants and local militia, which lasted for about an hour.

The US-baсked Syrian Democratic Forces, predominantly Kurdish YPG units, have been developing an advance in the eastern countryside of the ISIS self-proclaimed Syrian capital of Raqqah.

The decision to flank the ISIS stronghold from eastern direction followed a failed attempt of the US Special Forces and some SDF units to infiltrate the area of the strategic Tabqa dam.

De-facto, this meant that the US-led forces were not able to achieve their strategic goal west of Raqqah. However, the SDF announced the end of the 2nd and the start of the 3rd stage of the Operation Wrath of Euphrates.

The goal of the 3rd stage is to further isolate the ISIS-held city, including seizing the road to Deir Ezzor. If the SDF captures the road, ISIS units in Deir Ezzor will be cut off from their allies in Raqqah. This will decrease significantly the terrorist group’s ability to redeploy reinforcements from one front to another. Nevertheless, this is under a big question. The US strategists are well known due to their will to keep open exit roads for ISIS terrorists in besieged cities in Syria and Iraq. If the road remains open, ISIS units will likely flow from Raqqah to Deir Ezzor, escalating confrontation with the Syrian army in the besieged city.

While the new US administration is considering a new plan of the Raqqah operation, SDF representative, Rojda Felat, has already claimed that the SDF will need more heavy military equipment, including battle tanks, to storm the city. In other words, the YPG wants to get more equipment to increase its military capabilities. But this doesn’t mean that the group will throw all what it has to storm Raqqah.

Indeed, the fate of Raqqah depends on the decision of the US administration on the issue. Earlier this month, Lieutenant General Jon Davis emphasized that the US would need not only additional airstrikes.

There are already between 300 and 500 US Special Forces troops and unknown number of French and German special forces. This number will likely be increased to retake the ISIS capital in Syria. It could indicate that the Pentagon is going to involve US and NATO forces during the operation, repeating the Mosul case. The real role of the SDF is now unclear. In any case, its goal will be to show that its “local Syrian forces” storm the ISIS stronghold.

Former acting director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Michael Morell during a televised interview with American talk show host Charlie Rose, openly conspired to commit a raft of war crimes in Syria, suggesting that the US should take measures to ”covertly” kill Russians and Iranians through armed proxies on the ground.

He also suggested targeting Syria’s senior leadership through a series of terrorist attacks in and around Damascus, according to CBS News.

I’d give them the things that they need to both go after the Assad government but also to have the Iranians and the Russians pay a little price. When we were in Iraq, the Iranians were giving weapons to the Shia’a militia who were killing American soldiers. The Iranians were making us pay a price. We need to make the Iranians pay a price in Syria. We need to make the Russians pay a price.

Charlie Rose would then interrupt Morell to clarify by stating:

You make them pay the price by killing Russians? And killing Iranians?

To which Morell replied emphatically:

Yes. Yes. Covertly. You don’t tell the world about it, right? You don’t stand up at the Pentagon and say we did this. Right? But you make sure they know it in Moscow and Tehran.

And indeed, this appears to be precisely what the US has already been doing. At least two Russian helicopters have been shot down over Syria. The first near the Syrian city of Palmyra by terrorists from the self-proclaimed Islamic State using what Russian sources claimed was a US-made TOW anti-tank missile system, which is also capable of shooting down slow, low-flying aircraft.

Nursa forces are now leading a US-backed offensive on the Syrian city of Aleppo.

Both incidents appear to be the precise manifestation of Morell’s admitted conspiracy to kill Russians covertly, with Moscow apparently having gotten the message, and subsequently relaying it to the rest of the world by linking the incidents to US-armed terrorist organisations.

“Morell’s Plan” Could Never Work

Morell’s plan to kill Russians and Iranians, has not deterred Moscow or Tehran. Unlike the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, predicated on a premeditated lie as clearly exposed by the recent UK government-published Iraq Inquiry, Russia and Iran are engaged in Syria at the behest of the Syrian government.

Furthermore, their objective is not simply to project Russian and Iranian power beyond their borders, but to prevent the collapse of Syria into a NATO-induced Libya-style failed state that will serve as a staging ground for the spread of war back over their own borders. In other words, unlike the US’ intervention in Iraq seeking extraterritorial geopolitical gain, Russia and Iran’s intervention is based on very real and immediate existential concerns.

Thus, Morell’s plan to kill Russians and Iranians was an ill-conceived attempt to convince both nations to capitulate to US designs in Syria today, so that an even greater loss of Russian and Iranian lives could be embarked upon by wider proxy war in the near future.

In the process of organising this ill-conceived plan, the US has now further implicated itself as a state-sponsor of terrorism, further undermining its own pretext for intervention in Syria to allegedly “fight terrorism.”

With US-made TOW missiles conveniently, or very likely, covertly falling into the hands of designated terrorist organisations and being turned against Russian and Iranian forces, the US has also further undermined its own narrative revolving around its primacy as a stabilising force both within the region and globally.

US officials have revealed that a collection of weapons was stolen from the Panzer Kaserne base near Stuttgart earlier this month and couldn’t be located, leading to concerns that the arms may have ended up on the black market – or in the wrong hands.

“Several semi-automatic pistols, one small-caliber automatic rifle and a shotgun were among the items taken,” said Chris Grey, a spokesman for the US Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID).

“Due to the ongoing investigation, we will not be releasing any additional information or any specifics on the items stolen at this time to protect the integrity of the investigative process,” said Ray Johnson, a spokesman for the Army’s Installation Management Command-Europe.

The Cold War-era facility serves as a local garrison headquarters and an operational base for elite units, including the Green Berets and Navy SEALS.

“We are looking at all possibilities as the investigation continues, but at this point in the investigation it does not appear that an outside entity stole the firearms and equipment or breached the fence line, but we have not completely ruled it out,” Grey said.

Such cases are routinely dealt with internally, but considering it has been weeks since the theft with no resolution, the US Army has had to go public.

“German authorities were notified and are working with the Army on the investigation,” said Johnson.

The timing of the disappearance is particularly inopportune.

On July 19, a refugee pledging allegiance to Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) attacked tourists on a train, and a German-Iranian teenager went on a shooting spree in Munich on July 22. The next day, a Syrian refugee blew himself up at a music festival.

“I wouldn’t overplay it – it was only a few weapons, and no indications it was an outside source,” Peter Schulze, Professor of International Relations at the University of Gottingen, told RT. “Of course this will not contribute to a more relaxed atmosphere among the German people, as it adds fire to the existing angst about their use in a potential terrorist attack.”